My name is Sam Anderson.

I am a staff writer for the New York Times Magazine.

I kind of write about everything.

I think my beat is subjects that I get totally obsessed with

and then force my editors to let me write about.

And a subject I've been obsessed with for so many years now is the old leather man.

He's a sort of legendary folk hero from the 19th century who used to walk in this giant circle, 365 miles around

through New York and Connecticut over and over and over again for decades. At such regular

intervals that people said you could set your clocks by it. He wore this big, funky leather suit

that he stitched together himself. And no one knew where

he came from or why he was doing this. He was a total mystery to the people who lived along his

route. Newspapers published basically like fan fiction about the old leather man, origin

stories that people just made up about him

I think he was kind of a perfect vehicle for people to express their own anxieties and fantasies

just all kinds of trauma tragedy people projected on to this mysterious guy.

I stumbled across the old leather man while I was researching something else, and for

whatever reason, it hit me like a bolt of lightning.

I think what got to me was, number one, it's a great mystery, but number two, there was something really moving

about this man and his relationship to the towns that he walked through. There was such a

generosity from people and genuine curiosity and empathy for him that I found really touching.

And I think I really related to this guy,

as strange as it sounds. Like a lot of people, I think I feel sometimes alienated and strange,

...